Thoughts and Ramblings of a Disabled Vet

Post navigation

This post is about your everyday household major appliances. What you bought way back when that worked fine for years (and years) vs what you were forced to replace it with when “ol’ trusty” finally gave up the ghost. Unfortunately, my wonderful wife and I had to go through this very same thing, replacing 2 major appliances and 1 could-be-considered a major appliance and all within a 2 year span of time.

The washing machine

Okay, once upon a time…

There was this washing machine, a top loader Kenmore, bought new sometime around 25 years ago. It worked wonderfully, never once failing to do the job right up until last year when it simply refused to do anything at all. Just died all at once. Alright, inconvenient but not unexpected. After all, 25 years of good steady service out of a washing machine is more than acceptable.

So we wandered up to our local Sears outlet and ended up buying a fancy front loading machine with all the bells and whistles to replace “ol’ reliable to the tune of around $700 marked down from $900 or so (what a bargain). Prices on washing machines have sure gone up. Still, it had an excellent rating and all that.

But it will probably only last 5 years.

That’s what the tech told us when it was being installed. “Yeah, don’t expect the electronics in this thing to last more than 5 years”, he said. “These are what you call throw away items”.

Ah, great. We just spent $700, marked down from $900, on a “throw away item” that will typically only last 5 years.

Right. On then.

The hot water heater

Once upon a time…

There was this power vented, gas fired, hot water heater (the kind where the exhaust can’t be piped into a chimney so it requires a blower and it’s own exhaust pipe to the outside) that was lurking in the corner of the utility room of our house when we bought it. I don’t know how old this thing was but the tech we had in to replace the pilot mechanism one year asked us where we got the museum piece from. Apparently this particular hot water heater was built back around 100 years ago? Well, at least 30.

I tried to drain the sludge off the bottom of it a few months ago and when nothing came out, not even water, I decided to have it replaced there and then before the bottom gave way entirely.

In comes the new power vented gas fired hot water heater with a price tag of $1700 (installed) instead of the usual $700 (installed) for the non-power vented type and the old one was carted off while I wept silently cuddling my checkbook to my chest. But before the “installation expert” left, who had basically stood around criticizing the two techs that were actually installing the thing, I asked him how long these new fangled, electronicized, computerized water heaters lasted these days. His reply?

“Well, don’t expect the electronics to last more than 5 years”, he said. At least he didn’t say it was a throw away item?

Next

The microwave

Once upon a time…again…

So maybe a microwave doesn’t qualify as a major appliance in this day and age but considering the microwave we recently replaced was built sometime around 1978 (Amana Radar Range), it most definitely qualified as “major” back then. Hence the inclusion in this post. It was also huge-ish and it had to be replaced with one that was just as huge-ish.

And just for the record, the old Amana had given good reliable service for 38 years before it went up to the great radar range in the sky.

So again we meandered up to our local Sears outlet…*

*Look, we live in a little town in Vermont near the Canadian border, which has the all-out audacity to call itself a city, that has anything you’ll ever need as long as it’s groceries, over priced cars and trucks, farming equipment and accessories and little else. All priced at what the market will bear–which is as much as they can get away with. Except our little Sears outlet. Now where was I?

…in hopes of finding another huge-ish microwave (and we tend to use every inch of that hugeness) with a price tag that wouldn’t force us to limit the groceries we needed to buy that week. In short, we found one with the same huge-ish dimensions as our antique had priced around $250. And this time we could damn well install it ourselves.

But while our usual Sears rep showed us the various microwaves available and the pros and cons of each, he also included what seems to be the standard disclaimer that comes with any modern consumer type appliance that could possibly contain a microchip. When asked what the approximate life span of these new microwaves were he responded:

“Well, these are basically throw away items these days so I wouldn’t expect them to last more than 5 years.”

And so…

So now we’ve had to replace just shy $3000 worth of appliances that, according to those that sell and/or install them, will only last 5 years before we have to either fix or replace them. Really?

I started thinking that the old USA had become nothing but a “throw-away society” quite a few years back but I never thought it would go this far or become this expensive. What’s really bothering me now is that my low-mileage new-ish car which replaced my old high-mileage one has several on-board computers and electronic gadgets installed in it including electronically controlled steering, brakes and and accelerator.

And it’s already 2 years old! That only leaves 3 years left before everything craps out. At least that’s according to what I’ve been recently told about anything that contains any sort of electronics.

Does anything ever go as planned–ever? No, they don’t, which is why I’ve spent the majority of my adult life not making any plans at all. At least not past the point of, ‘I’m going to go shopping tomorrow because I’m on my last cracker and the cheese is gone’, type of thing. Any more effort applied to “firming up” up of said plans (like actually planning a schedule of events for the day) is a complete waste of time.

There’s a number of things that have to be done before the summer is out. There’s 165 feet of hedge to finish trimming, a few cords of firewood to move into the woodshed yet, the ever present mowing, and writing something on this blog that I, in my infinite lack of wisdom, decided to revive from hibernation recently. Okay, no problem.

Ha!

First, I woke up one morning about a week ago sick as a dog and it wasn’t some 24 hour thing either. More of a week long thing you might say of which I’m still recovering from. I hate long-in tooth diseases don’t you?

Second? Well, it has something to do with a “neighbor-turned-rabid” that has been giving my wife and I no end of trouble for the past year or so. And I really can’t say any more about the situation since it isn’t resolved–yet. Suffice it to say that being sick and dealing with the damn situation hasn’t left me in the best of moods and, as much I would like to, I can’t be bashing this neighbor here on the blog for all the public to see. Something to do with slander or is it libel? I forget.

Third. Well it seems I’ve forgotten what the third thing was but I’m sure it was time consuming and really annoying as well.

So everything I planned to do have been pushed back a week or so and that too is annoying me. What I really don’t understand is why a man like myself, who was fortunate enough early on to understand that making anything but the the loosest of plans was absolutely futile, becomes so annoyed when the plans he didn’t actually make don’t happen.

I think I’ll have to make a plan to learn how not to get so annoyed when my plans fall through. The plans I don’t make that is.

Why is “online” not a word? This is something I’ve been pondering for quite awhile now ever since every spell checker incorporated in every applicable program and browser has been telling me that “online” is not actually a word for many years now. I’ve also ignored this for many years now.

It seems to me that I’ve been “online” ever since something called the “Internet” first came into being. And later the term became even more widely known with the advent of the World Wide Web so it appears I’ve been “online” or, to be more spell-checking accurate, I’ve not been “online” since the 90’s

So this morning, despite the fact I was feeling rather horrible and minus my second cup of coffee, I decided to look into this and appears now that I’ve actually been “on line” or “on-line” all these years even though every single person I know, either personally or “online” (Ha!), spells it the way I do. Perhaps it’s time to add this poor neglected term to a dictionary somewhere?

Now you might think that this is a rather frivolous or downright silly subject to be writing about and I probably wouldn’t blame you however, as I said, I’m feeling rather horrible and I haven’t had my second cup of coffee yet. Also, it’s my old blog and I’ll write whatever I want? Well, something like that anyway.

Yup, it’s 2016 and there’s just so much to complain talk about that I had to drag this old blog of mine out of hibernation. I couldn’t help it–it’s truly become the land of confusion around here and it just bears whining writing about it. Aside from that I pretty much promised a good friend and fellow blogger that I’d start writing again and I couldn’t very well disappoint him now could I?

Now, before I begin (again) on this newest chapter in my blogging life I would like to direct everyone’s attention to the topmost entry in my sidebar. Please read it since it’s important that those who visit here and actually reads something that they understand my situation. I put that up when I took a break from writing and you can bet it still applies so please don’t expect a post a day since I doubt I could keep that up.

Everybody done reading that little blurb? Good. That’s taken care of.

So what confuses this 57 year old disabled vet these days? Here’s a very few that irk me to no end:

People

Politics

Global warming (and those who deny it)

The return of the Flat Earthers (really?)

Any device that begins with the word “smart”.

Texting (’nuff said for now)

Clinton and Trump (and those who would actually vote for either one of them).

Transgender bathrooms

People

Much much more

Did I list “people” twice? Yes I did because when it comes right down to it it’s people who confuse me the most. My whole impromptu list boils down to people, our society, how we act these days and what we’ve become or, more to the point, what we’ve appeared to devolve into. And this comes from someone who actually likes people and always practices the seemingly lost art of common courtesy and gives anyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove they don’t deserve it.

And those who prove they don’t used to be few and far between and now? It’s more than obvious they seem to be on the rise. Doesn’t anyone think before they speak anymore? Seems not.

So, out comes the virtual pen once again. I figure this old blog has been around for the last 10+ years and I keep it well maintained despite the lack of posts so why not use it? Blogging may be not the forefront of online social activity any longer but there’s still a few of us around. Probably more than a few.

On the road again…

Note: Comment moderation for new commenters is enabled. Hopefully those who have commented here before haven’t been forgotten by the main computer core. For the new folks, I’ll drag your comments out of moderation as soon as possible.

Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen, apparently it finally proves once and for all what’s been said about loud, large aggressive male types for decades. The article even included a video but I really didn’t dare watch it. And this particular article was not only ranked important enough, by some sort of Google News server farm algorithm, to grace the “Science” news section but it also had top billing as well.

Basically it boils down to this–the louder the howl, the smaller the balls. Yup, that’s what this recent study proved. No more, no less. Perhaps that’s why they howl so loud?

This brings to mind a couple questions:

Why, exactly, have a team of researchers been studying howler monkey balls in the first place and…

…why is this important?

It probably has something to do with evolution, procreation and loud guys with really huge vehicles–who knows? Even more to the point, who cares? We’ve have more important things to deal with don’t we? Like Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest (oh my) and when does the latest iPhone come out?

Alright, alright, it probably is important. Or at least important enough to study in order to contribute to the continuing quest of understanding our own species and all that but for myself? I could have done quite well without the knowledge.

Anyway, back to finish out the “Science” section for the day and perhaps I’ll find some other important “breaking news” in the world of scientific study that people really need to know about.